A Facebook post has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine is an RNA vaccine that will “actually change your DNA”.

Some of the 50 or so candidate Covid-19 vaccines are based on RNA technologies, but they do not change your DNA. 

Conventional vaccines contain inactivated versions of whatever pathogen causes the disease, or proteins on its surface, to cause an immune response in the body which means it can fight the real infection later.

RNA vaccines instead contain what’s called messenger RNA (mRNA), a code that gives the body instructions on how to make proteins on the surface of the virus.

The body uses this mRNA to build its own copies of these proteins, which the immune system responds to by producing antibodies (which help the body fight real infection).

This introduction of mRNA into human cells does not change the DNA of the human cells. If these cells replicate, the mRNA would not be incorporated into the new cells’ genetic information.

We’ve been asked about posts on social media sharing a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the South West Yorkshire NHS Partnership Foundation Trust. In it, the trust says it has not recorded any deaths due to Covid-19.

This is a real FOI and the information is correct–but this is not to say that this part of Yorkshire has not experienced any Covid deaths. 

This NHS trust would be unlikely to treat people seriously ill with Covid-19 because it provides disability, mental health and community services.

According to government data, the entire region of Yorkshire and the Humber, in which the trust is located, has recorded 5,012 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

A widely shared tweet claims that the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine isn’t a vaccine, but a “transfection agent”, kept alive so it can infect your cells and transfer genetic material. It cites the fact that the vaccine has to be stored at -80°C as evidence.

This particular vaccine does indeed have to be stored at around -70°C. But this is not because anything in it is “alive”, as the tweet claims.

It needs to be kept at lower temperatures to stop it from degrading.

The RNA in the vaccine is in no way “alive”. It is a small piece of genetic material that human cells can read and use to make proteins. 

It’s not clear what exactly the post means by “transfection agent”. Transfection is a very general term for the process by which genetic material is introduced into cells, which in essence is what this RNA vaccine does.

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